Rooftop
by J-to
Summary: Repost: BBRae gooey fluff form way back before when. Raven meditates. Beast Boy watches.


Author's Note : This is a little plot bunny that popped into my head as I was TRYING to go to sleep after posting chapter 2 of my other story. All this is fluffy goodness, like right out of a very girly anime love scene. It's totally crap, but it was super cute at the time and I needed to write it. Beast Boy gives me that Hanyaan(tm) feeling. I wrote it in about an hour or so. Then I went to go see my first Bollywood film - a scary Bollyween type thing they're showing on campus

Disclaimer: Teen titans, not mine, not yours, someone else's.

Random Note: Ok, so in Episode 7 ("Switched"), when they're all checking out their puppets, did anybody else notice the first thing BB does is check his puppet's erm... "puppethood"? Then he pulls a face. I guess THAT'S taller too. ;;

Rooftop

Sliding through the door to the roof that had been left slightly ajar, I made my way into the bright yellow late afternoon sunlight. As a cat, I was graceful, soundless, and totally able to sneak up on my prey. And there she was.

If the others knew just how often I snuck up on the roof to watch her meditate, I'd probably never live it down. The only thing worse than that, I think, would be her reaction. I can only imagine.

So for now, I sit, quietly, in the corner, positioned so that I am just barely out of her periforal vision, further hidden by a beam from the roof. I can see her eyes closed, her forehead smooth and her eyebrows not lowered with her usual concentration. I can feel her letting go... detaching herself from this world. Where does she go?

When we were inside her mind that time, and we met all the part of Raven that she keeps very carefully hidden, I found myself wondering what she would be like, if she just let all of these separate emotions free. Cyborg said later that he wished Raven were more like her pink self more often. Myself, I was just filled with a strange happiness at knowing that she too was human - and that somewhere inside, all these feelings were there. And I had gotten to see them. All my suspicions were confirmed.

I felt like the luckiest guy on earth.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos..."

Frequently, I watched her lips as she chanted to herself, as she was doing now. Sometimes, I mentally chanted along with her, hoping to understand some of the inner peace she was trying to create, while unknowingly destroying any inner peace I ever had.

Too often, I let myself wonder what those lips tasted like.

Drifting to a place where for once, I could show her how I really felt. Some part of my mind vaguely realized I was only creating more pain for myself in the long run, but mostly, I didn't care. Feeling like this, someone could have stabbed me through the heart with an ice pick, and as long as I still had the ability to feel, I'd lo- like her. Alot.

As I was having these thoughts, the chanting had stopped. A decidedly heavy silence had fallen over the rooftop, and my muscles tensed, as Raven's eyebrow twitched.

"I know you're there, so you can stop hiding Beast Boy." My mind scrambled for an excuse, a lie, as I guiltily crept out from my hiding spot. Still as a cat, I leapt onto the roof's ledge, briefly toying with the idea of leaping into the air and down into the ocean. Briefly. I transformed back into my usual form, and dangled my legs over the side, still not making eye contact with the object of my voyeurism.

"Uh... Hey Raven. What's up?" As I grinned sheepishly, I stole a glance to my side to see that instead of glaring angrily at me, Raven too, had sat down on the ledge and was staring off into the horizon. We sat like that in silence for a while, before the overwhelming need to speak forced me to say something dumb.

"Do you like meditating?" See? Dumb.

Raven looked at me with a confused expression, like she had never really thought about it before. "Well, it's not really a matter of Liking it or not. I have to do it in order to keep my emotions in check. But... yes... I guess I do like it." After she finished speaking, she continued to look quizzically at me, as if expecting more.

It seemed that all Raven cared about was keeping her emotions in check. There had to be more to it than that, didn't there? Didn't she care for anything - or anyone - else? "Raven, what's... the most important thing? To you I mean." I was certainly on a roll with these intelligent questions. It suddenly occurred to me that this was the first time Raven and I had really had something like a serious conversation, and it must have occurred to her too, because she didn't look like she wanted to zap me or something. She looked very thoughtful, and my chest was flooded with that warm fuzzy feeling.

"Well, I guess... the most important thing... would be to learn to control my powers, to control myself, and use this gift I have for good instead of mass destruction." She looked a little sad as she said this last part, and I wondered briefly if she was referring to the fact that her father was an evil demon from another dimension. She broke my stupor by saying pointedly, "What about you?" "What's the most important thing to you?"

Now that the tables had been turned, and I was put on the spot, I tried to think of a decent answer as a looked to where an orange sun was sliding below the farest stretches of ocean. Surprisingly, it came to me very easily. "To protect the people I care about. Even without my powers, I want the people around me to be safe... and happy. Robin, and Cyborg, and Star..." I turned to the person I cared for more than anyone else, determined, in this instant to lay my feelings perfectly clearly out on the table. I made sure her violet eyes met mine as I finished, "...and you."

I wasn't sure what I expected to come of it, a cordial nod, maybe a slight smile, but this day was determined to be full of unexpected events. Raven blushed then, not very slightly or inconspicuously either, but a full-out-to-the-roots-of-her-hair blush. I couldn't help blushing as well, as I considered the implications of such a reaction.

"I... Thank you..." Still blushing, Raven stammered this strange reply as she broke our gaze and returned to watching the ocean. This was my chance, possibly my only one, I figured, and praying to whatever god looked over superheros, I lightly reached over for her hand and took it into mine.

She neither pulled away nor said anything, but slightly tensed, and then relaxed as she allowed her fingers to thread bewtween mine. I wondered briefly if it were possible to never again have to separate myself from her soft touch, before realizing it might get difficult when fighting battles and other things that usually required two hands...

"It's so beautiful up here," Raven whispered, as she squinted off into the orange glow.

"Yeah," Clearly, I was not talking about the sunset. She tightened her hold on my hand briefly, before almost entirely letting go.

"This can't happen," she sighed.

"What can't?"

"This." Was that remorse I detected in her tone? My heart sunk.

"Why can't it happen?" I demanded. It didn't make sense. If I cared about her, and she cared about me...

"You know why it can't happen." She detatched her hand entirely from mine and placed both in her lap, looking down at them. I studied them closely, as if they held the answer to this problem. She was right, I did know why. I always had known why it wouldn't work, couldn't work. It seemed so unfair; not just to me, but to her as well. She shouldn't have to look like this right now; so alone and resigned to her fate. Foolhardy courage and anger welled up in my heart as I responded to what seemed like some sort of cosmic double dare.

"I don't care what could happen, what will happen. All I care about is you," As I said this, I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her closer to me. Her eyes grew wide in fear - fear for what I would do? Or what it would cause her to do? "Raven... I li- I love you!" As if to prove my point, I did what I had been waiting to do for so long, and what she must have been waiting for also. Pressing my determined lips to her soft, receptive ones, I half expected to universe to implode at that very instant.

All that actually happened though, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, inside and out, leaning into me, letting go. This was heaven. This was hell. For her to tell me that this could never happen, but then having it happen still... my mind buzzed from the sensation of it all. I was kissing Raven. Raven was letting me kiss her. Raven was kissing me back.

The rooftop was a very beautiful place. 


End file.
